Page 216 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

—Sure?
—Yes, father.
—Hm!
The girl came back, making signs to him to be quick and
go out quietly by the back. Stephen laughed and said:
—He has a curious idea of genders if he thinks a bitch is
masculine.
—Ah, it’s a scandalous shame for you, Stephen, said his
mother, and you’ll live to rue the day you set your foot in
that place. I know how it has changed you.
—Good morning, everybody, said Stephen, smiling and
kissing the tips of his fingers in adieu.
The lane behind the terrace was waterlogged and as he
went down it slowly, choosing his steps amid heaps of wet
rubbish, he heard a mad nun screeching in the nuns’ mad-
house beyond the wall.
—Jesus! O Jesus! Jesus!
He shook the sound out of his ears by an angry toss of
his head and hurried on, stumbling through the moulder-
ing offal, his heart already bitten by an ache of loathing and
bitterness. His father’s whistle, his mother’s mutterings,
the screech of an unseen maniac were to him now so many
voices offending and threatening to humble the pride of his
youth. He drove their echoes even out of his heart with an
execration; but, as he walked down the avenue and felt the
grey morning light falling about him through the dripping
trees and smelt the strange wild smell of the wet leaves and
bark, his soul was loosed of her miseries.
The rain-laden trees of the avenue evoked in him, as

216 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man